Methods circuits devices systems and associated computer executable code for acquiring acoustic signals

ABSTRACT

The present invention includes methods, circuits, devices, systems and associated computer executable code for acquiring, processing and rendering acoustic signals. According to some embodiments, one or more direction specific audio signals may be generated using a microphone array comprising two or more microphones and an audio stream generator. The audio stream generator may receive a direction parameter from an optical tracking system. There may be provided an audio rendering system adapted to normalize and/or balance acoustic signals acquired from a soundscape.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is a continuation application of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. 14/721,235 filed on May 26, 2015, titled “MethodsCircuits Devices Systems and Associated Computer Executable Code forAcquiring Acoustic Signals” (hereinafter “The 235' Application”). The235' Application claims priority from U.S. Provisional PatentApplication Ser. Nos.: (1) 62/002,990, filed on May 26, 2014; and (2)62/039,440, filed on Aug. 20, 2014. Each of the aforementionedapplications is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to the field of acoustic signalor sound acquisition. The present invention relates to processing ofaudio signals. The present invention also relates to circuits, devices,systems and associated computer executable code for acquiring,processing and audio rendering directional acoustic signals.

BACKGROUND

Hearing loss, deafness, hard of hearing, hearing impairment, is apartial or total inability to hear. In children it may affect thedevelopment of language and can cause work related difficulties foradults. It may be caused by many factors, including: genetics, aging,exposure to noise, illness, chemicals and physical trauma. While theresults of hearing tests are expressed in decibels, hearing loss isusually described as mild, mild-moderate, moderate, moderately severe,severe, or profound.

Hearing loss is usually acquired by a person who at some point in lifehad no hearing impairment. Globally hearing loss affects about 10% ofthe population to some degree. There are a number of measures that canprevent hearing loss, including avoidance of loud noises, chemicalagents, and physical trauma.

For those requiring hearing assistance due to hearing loss, there arehearing aids, which are generally electroacoustic devices designed toamplify sound for the wearer, usually with the aim of making speech moreintelligible. Earlier devices, known as ear trumpets or ear horns, werepassive funnel-like amplification cones designed to gather sound energyand direct it into the ear canal. Similar devices include the boneanchored hearing aid, and cochlear implant.

A major drawback of all hearing aids provided to date is their inabilityto spatially separate background noise from sound of interest which thewearer wishes to hear.

Wearable computing devices, also known as body-borne computers orwearables are miniature electronic devices that are worn by the bearerunder, with or on top of clothing. Wearables have been developed forgeneral or special purpose information technologies and mediadevelopment.

There is a need for improved methods, circuits, devices, systems andassociated computer executable for acquiring, processing and renderingacoustic signals, optionally using a wearable computing device.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention may include methods, circuits, devices, systemsand associated machine executable code for acquiring acoustic signalssuch as human speech and/or various other sound types. According tofurther embodiments, the present invention may include methods,circuits, devices, systems and associated machine executable code forprocessing, normalization, balancing, and/or audio rendering acquiredacoustic signals such as human speech and/or other sounds audible.According to yet further embodiments, the present invention may includemethods, circuits, devices, systems and associated machine executablecode for transcribing, translating and/or graphically rendering acquiredhuman speech. The present invention includes methods, circuits, devices,systems and associated computer executable code for dynamicallytargeting a directivity of an acoustic signal (e.g. sound) acquisitionassembly towards a direction of a sound source (e.g. a human speaker)identified and/or tracked by an optical tracking system.

According to embodiments, there may be provided a mobile computingdevice, such as a wearable computing device, including: (1) anelectrically configurable acoustic signal (i.e. sound) acquisitionassembly whose operation and optionally directivity may be dynamicallyaltered by an electrical signal; and (2) an optical tracking systemadapted to optically track one or more sound sources and to output tothe acoustic signal acquisition assembly an electrical signal orindicator to adjust operation and/or directivity of the acoustic signalacquisition assembly so as to acquire acoustic signals from a directionof an optically tracked sound source while substantially suppressing,discarding, excluding, and/or otherwise masking acoustic signalinformation from directions other than that of the optically trackedsound source. According to embodiments, the optical tracking system maybe adapted to update its output electrical signal or indicator as thetarget sound source moves relative the computing device, thereby causingthe directivity of the acoustic signal acquisition assembly to changeand track the moving sound source, without the assembly physicallymoving.

According to some embodiments, the mobile device may be in the form ofeyewear having an array of microphones disposed across and within theframe and/or stems of the eyewear. According to such embodiments, theoptical tracking system may include a forward looking optical imagesensor and/or the optical tracking system may include an inward facingoptical eye tracking sensor. The eyewear embodiment may also include acommunication interface, wired or wireless, to connect the eyewear to asmartphone which may be used as a user interface for the eyewear. Atouchscreen of the smartphone may be used to view potential trackingtargets and to select one or more potential targets for actual trackingby the optical tracking system. The smartphone may also be used toprovide machine transcription (i.e. speech-to-text) for speech acquiredthrough the acoustic acquisition assembly of the eyewear. The smartphonemay also be used to provide machine translation for speech acquiredthrough the acoustic acquisition assembly of the eyewear.

According to some embodiments, the mobile device may be in the form ofheadphones having an array of microphones disposed across and within thebody and frame of the headphones. According to such embodiments, theoptical tracking system may include a forward looking optical imagesensor on a forward facing surface of the headphones. The headphonesembodiment may also include a communication interface, wired orwireless, to connect the headphones to a smartphone which may be used asa user interface for the headphones. A touchscreen of the smartphone maybe used to view potential tracking targets and to select potentialtarget for tracking by the optical tracking system. The smartphone mayalso be used to provide machine transcription (i.e. speech-to-text)functionality for speech acquired through the acoustic acquisitionassembly of the headphones. The smartphone may also be used to providemachine translation functionality for speech acquired through theacoustic acquisition assembly of the headphones.

According to aspects of the present invention, there may be providedoptical sensor guided directional audio signal (or audio stream)generation, wherein directional audio signal/stream generation mayinclude one or more of: (a) microphone selection, (b) acousticbeam-forming, and/or (c) acoustic beam-steering. According toembodiments, an optical tracking system including an optical sensorassembly (e.g. CCD or CMOS with optics) and tracking circuits (e.g.processor(s) executing image feature identification and trackingalgorithms) may generate a signal or indicator to guide the directionalaudio stream generation. Directional audio signal/stream (also referableto as “directional audio signal”) generation may be performed with anacoustic microphone array integral or otherwise functionally associatedwith audio signal processing circuits configured or programmed as adirectional audio stream generator.

According to some embodiments of the present invention, there may beprovided an electrically configurable acoustic acquisition assemblywhich may include a microphone array having two or more microphonespositioned at some distance from one another, wherein each of themicrophones may be adapted to convert acoustic signals (i.e. sound)which arrive at the microphones into electrical signals such as analogor digital audio signals. The microphone array may include sets ofmatched microphones, wherein matched microphones may have substantiallyidentical frequency response characteristics and/or directivitycharacteristics. The microphone array may include microphones which areomni-directional microphones, poly-directional microphones and/ordirectional microphones.

Directional microphones of an array according to embodiments of thepresent invention may be positioned and/or affixed within the array tohave differing directivities and to facilitate differing acoustic signalacquisition coverage regions. Directivity of array microphones may befixed relative to the microphone structure or may be electricallysteerable as taught by the MEMS microphone shown in U.S. patentapplication Pub. No. US20130142358 A1. According to some embodiments,acoustic signal acquisition coverage region(s) of each of two separatedirectional microphones of an array according to embodiments mayoverlap, partially or completely. Any directional microphone structuresknown today or to be devised in the future may be applicable to aspectsof the present invention.

Microphones of an array according to some embodiments may have either ananalog signal output or a digital signal (e.g. I²C or I²S) output.According to some embodiments of the present invention, there may be amix of analog and digital microphones on the same array. According toembodiments of the present invention including analog microphones, theremay be provided analog signal to digital signal conversion circuits(“A/D”) for sampling and digitizing output signals from the analogmicrophones.

The electrically configurable acoustic signal acquisition assembly maybe integral with, include and/or be otherwise electrically coupled to aDirectional Audio Stream Generator (DASG), which DASG may be adapted toselect, activate, receive and/or sample output signals from one or moreof the array microphones. The DASG may be adapted to convert electricalaudio signal outputs from one or more of the array microphones into adirection specific electrical audio signal, digital or analog. Adirection specific electrical audio signal (also referable to as“direction specific audio signal” or “DSAS”) generated for a specificdirection relative to the array (e.g. 30 degrees left of tangential axisof array), may be an electrical signal which is generated and/ormodulated so as to: (a) predominantly include or carry acoustic signalinformation from acoustic signals which arrived at the microphone(s)from the specific direction, also referable to as the specific DirectionOf Arrival (DOA); and (b) substantially suppresses, discard, exclude,lack and/or otherwise mask acoustic signal information from acousticsignals which arrived at the microphone(s) from directions other thanthe specific direction.

The DASG may convert array microphone output signals, analog or digital,into a DSAS for a given acoustic signal DOA by: (a) selecting and/orsampling an output of one or more array microphones whose directivityoverlaps with the given acoustic signal DOA; (b) acoustic beamformingand/or acoustic beam-steering of array microphone output signals into abeam-formed audio signal with a directivity aimed towards the givenacoustic signal DOA; and/or (c) a combination of array microphoneselection, activation, output sampling, and beamforming of the outputsof the selected array microphones. Some of the array microphones may bedirectional microphones and the DASG may include microphone selectioncircuits which may select which microphones to activate or otherwiseutilize in generating a direction specific audio signal. Additionally,the DASG may include one or more signal combining circuits to combinesignals from selected directional and/or omni-directional microphones.The DASG may include acoustic beamforming circuits to generate anacoustically beam-formed audio signal with a steerable directivity,wherein input audio signals originating at the array microphones may bereceived by the beamforming circuits: (a) directly from all or a subsetof array microphones, (b) from microphone selection circuits whichdirect selected microphone output signals to the beamforming circuits,(c) from signal combining circuits which may combine microphone outputsignals, and/or (d) some combination of (a) through (c).

According to embodiments, the DASG may include background noisesubtraction or removal functionality. According to such embodiments,during or after generation of a DSAS associated with an intended DOA,sound signal components which are estimated to be background noise maybe subtracted from the DSAS. Background noise may be estimated bysampling audio signals from array microphones having directivity otherthan the intended DOA. It should be understood, however, that anyacoustic noise cancellation circuits, algorithms and/or techniques knowntoday or to be devised in the future may be applicable to the presentinvention.

A device according to some embodiments may include an optical trackingsystem (OTS) adapted to optically track one or more sound sources and toprovide a direction indicator or signal indicating a direction of atracked sound source relative to the device. The optical tracking systemmay include an optical sensor assembly with an optical image sensor andwith one or more lenses, which optical sensor may be disposed on orwithin the device to face forward and to acquire image information froma scene in front of the device. Image processing algorithms, such asfeature identification (e.g. torso and/or face identification)algorithms and/or identified-feature-tracking algorithms may be executedby either dedicated or multi-purpose processing circuitry in order totrack and estimate a relative direction of a sound source such as ahuman face. The OTS may be further adapted to provide the estimatedrelative direction to a DASG of the device, in the form of a signal,indicator or parameter, generated once, intermittently or substantiallycontinuously.

According to some embodiments, the OTS may be adapted to track two ormore sound sources at the same time. According to such embodiments, theOTS may generate a separate signal or indicator for each tracked source.According to such embodiment, the DASG may be adapted to generate aseparate DSAS for each tracked sources. Each DSAS may be generate using:(a) a separate set one or more directional microphones, which sets mayoverlap; (b) a separate acoustic beam-forming processing chain; and/or(c) a combination of (a) and (b).

According to further embodiments, there may be provided an opticalsensor assembly which faces an eye of a user of the device. Imageprocessing algorithms adapted to convert an image of an eye of a userinto an estimated viewing angle of the eye of a user may be executed byeither dedicated or multi-purpose processing circuitry. The viewingangle estimate may be used in order to further estimate a relativedirection of a sound source being looked at by the user. The OTS may befurther adapted to provide the estimated relative direction to a DASG ofthe device, in the form of a signal, indicator or parameter, generatedonce, intermittently or substantially continuously.

According to some embodiments, a DSAS may be sent audio renderingcircuits driving one or more speakers. The DSAS may be in the form of adigital signal and the audio rendering circuits may include one or moredigital to analog converters (D/A). The rendering circuits may alsoinclude an adjustable amplifier, optionally a separate amplifier foreach speaker. According to further embodiments, each audio renderingoutput chain of the audio rendering circuits may be configured (e.g.using a digital filter or a digital amplifier) with a signal transfercharacteristic specific to an ear of a specific user.

A device according to embodiments of the present invention may includeone or more speakers connected output ports of the audio renderingcircuits. The connection between the speakers and one or more outputports may be wired or wireless (e.g. Bluetooth). According to someembodiments, each of two speakers may be a connected to a separateoutput port of the audio rendering circuits and each of the speakers maybe integral or otherwise functionally associated with an ear interfacesuch an earbud or a headphone.

A device according to yet further embodiments may include a displayassembly, for example in the form of an eye projector on eyewear. Thedisplay assembly may provide a user with transcriptions and/ortranslations of device acquired speech. The display may also be used aspart of an interface for: (a) selection of a sound source to track; and(2) indicating towards which sound sources a DSAS is being directed.

Embodiments of the present invention include optical sensors andcircuits to generate signals to adjust a directivity of a dynamicallyadjustable acoustic sensor array.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The subject matter regarded as the invention is particularly pointed outand distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification.The invention, however, both as to organization and method of operation,together with objects, features, and advantages thereof, may best beunderstood by reference to the following detailed description when readwith the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1A shows a functional block diagram of an exemplary acoustic signalacquisition device according to embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 1B shows a flowchart including exemplary steps of an acousticsignal acquisition device according to embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 2A shows a diagram of a device according to embodiments of presentinvention related to eyewear;

FIG. 2B shows an exemplary functional block diagram of the deviceaccording to FIG. 2A;

FIG. 2C shows a diagram of a device according to embodiments of presentinvention related to headgear, more specifically headphones;

FIGS. 3A to 3D show illustrated use cases of a device according toembodiments; and

FIGS. 4A and 4B show functional block diagrams of embodiments of thepresent invention including analog microphones and digital microphones,respectively.

It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration,elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale.For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggeratedrelative to other elements for clarity. Further, where consideredappropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures toindicate corresponding or analogous elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are setforth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention.However, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that thepresent invention may be practiced without these specific details. Inother instances, well-known methods, procedures, components and circuitshave not been described in detail so as not to obscure the presentinvention.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the followingdiscussions, it is appreciated that throughout the specificationdiscussions utilizing terms such as “processing”, “computing”,“calculating”, “determining”, or the like, refer to the action and/orprocesses of a computer or computing system, or similar electroniccomputing device, that manipulate and/or transform data represented asphysical, such as electronic, quantities within the computing system'sregisters and/or memories into other data similarly represented asphysical quantities within the computing system's memories, registers orother such information storage, transmission or display devices.

Embodiments of the present invention may include apparatuses forperforming the operations herein. This apparatus may be speciallyconstructed for the desired purposes, or it may comprise a generalpurpose computer selectively activated or reconfigured by a computerprogram stored in the computer. Such a computer program may be stored ina computer readable storage medium, such as, but is not limited to, anytype of disk including floppy disks, optical disks, CD-ROMs,magnetic-optical disks, read-only memories (ROMs), random accessmemories (RAMs) electrically programmable read-only memories (EPROMs),electrically erasable and programmable read only memories (EEPROMs),magnetic or optical cards, or any other type of media suitable forstoring electronic instructions, and capable of being coupled to acomputer system bus.

The processes and displays presented herein are not inherently relatedto any particular computer or other apparatus. Various general purposesystems may be used with programs in accordance with the teachingsherein, or it may prove convenient to construct a more specializedapparatus to perform the desired method. The desired structure for avariety of these systems will appear from the description below. Inaddition, embodiments of the present invention are not described withreference to any particular programming language. It will be appreciatedthat a variety of programming languages may be used to implement theteachings of the inventions as described herein.

According to embodiments, a direction specific audio signal or audiodata stream may be generated by applying one or more directionparameters derived from an optical tracking system to analog and/ordigital circuits associated with a microphone array. The microphonearray may include omnidirectional microphones, directional microphonesor a combination of both. The optical tracking system may track featuresof one or more objects, a position of an eye or a combination of both.The analog and/or digital circuits associated with the microphone arraymay include microphone driver circuits, microphone selection circuits,signal conditioning circuits, amplifier circuits, signal combiningcircuits, signal subtraction circuits, signal filtering circuits, analogacoustic beamforming circuits, analog to digital converters, digitalfilters, digital acoustic beamforming circuits, and/or audio renderingcircuits.

Turning now to FIG. 1A, there is shown a functional block diagram of anexemplary acoustic signal acquisition device according to embodiment ofthe present invention. The device may include an acoustic acquisitionassembly with a set or array of microphones having a fixed spacing andorientation relative to one another. The assembly may be integral orotherwise functionally associated with a Directional Audio StreamGenerator (DASG) which receives sound source target direction signals,indicators, parameters and vectors from an Optical Tracking System(OTS). The DASG may include microphone selection circuits to select oneor more array microphones, switching circuits to access the selectedmicrophone terminals or ports, and activation or driving circuits toactivate and drive selected microphones.

According to some embodiments, the microphone selection circuits mayselect one or more array microphones with a directivity corresponding toa target direction. A Direction Specific Audio Stream or Signal (DSAS)may include only signals from one or more selected directionalmicrophones. Alternatively, acoustic beamforming may be applied tomicrophone outputs of two or more microphones. The DASG may includeacoustic beamforming circuits for generating the DSAS, for example asanalog acoustic beamforming circuits. According to examples where theDASG includes digital acoustic beamforming circuits and the microphoneshave analog outputs, the DSAG may also include an analog to digitalconverter (D/A) to convert. FIG. 4A shows an embodiment of the presentinvention where the array microphones are analog microphones and theDASG includes digital acoustic beamforming processing pipelines runningon processing circuitry (e.g. DSP, FPGA, ASIC, or processor). FIG. 4Bshows an embodiment of the present invention where the array microphonesare digital microphones and the DASG includes digital acousticbeamforming processing pipelines running on processing circuitry (e.g.DSP, FPGA, ASIC, or processor). According to some embodiments, thebeamforming circuit may include a combination of analog and digitalbeamforming components. Any acoustic beamforming circuits, technologiesor techniques known today or to devised in the future may be applicableto aspects of the present invention.

The OTS is integral or connected to a forward looking camera and theoptical processing circuits in the OTS may include featureidentification processing to identify one or more features of objects orpersons present in front of the device. The one or more features may bea human torso portion, a human face, a human lip, a video presentationdevice, an audio presentation device, and any potential acoustic signalsource. The OTS may include processing to estimate a direction parameterindicative of a direction corresponding to one or more identifiedfeatures. The direction parameter may indicate a relative directionbetween the device and an identified object. At least one separatedirection parameter may be generated for each of two or more separateidentified features associated with each of two or more separate objectsor persons, for example to two or more separate people.

The direction parameter for a given identified feature of a given objector person may be used by the DASG to select which microphones of themicrophone array may be utilized in collecting acoustic signalsemanating from the given object or person. The direction parameter for agiven object may be used to calculate beamforming parameters, such asbeamforming coefficients utilized in steering an acoustic beam towardsthe given object or person and collecting acoustic signals emanatingfrom the given feature. The direction parameter for a given identifiedfeature may be used for both microphone selection and beamformingparameter calculation.

A device according to an embodiment of FIG. 1A also may include an eyetracker for tracking a position of an eye of a wearer of the device. Theeye tracker may be implemented with an optical tracking system aimed ata wearer's eye. The optical tracking system may be implemented using anytracking technology known today or to be devised in the future. The eyetracker may include processing to estimate a direction parameterindicative of a device wearer's viewing direction as indicated by aposition of a tracked eye of the wearer.

The audio rendering assembly of FIG. 1A may include one or more audiospeakers and an audio signal rendering circuits (engine) adapted todrive each of said one or more speakers. The audio signal generator maybe adapted to generate one or more audio signals based on the firstdirection specific audio signal. The audio signal generator may beadapted to generate a separate audio signal for each of two speakers,wherein a relative volume and delay between the separate signals may bebased on the first acoustic signal direction of arrival. The audiosignal generator may include ear specific signal customization circuitsto adapt an audio signal based on a frequency sensitivity of a specificear. The audio signal generator may include background noise suppressioncircuits.

According to further embodiments, the OTS may be adapted to: (1) track achange in relative direction between the device and an identifiedfeature of an object, and (2) update the at least one directionparameter used by said DASG to generate the first stream of audio data.The OTS may be also be adapted to track two or more identified featuresand to generate separate direction parameters for each of the two ormore identified features. FIG. 3A shows an embodiment of the presentinvention where the device is in the form of eyewear and the OTS istracking to separate people. A separate DSAS is generated for each ofthe two tracked sound sources (i.e. people). FIGS. 3B through 3D showscenarios where the OTS tracks both static and moving sound sources anda DSAS for the tracked people (sound acquisition targets) is adjusted orsteered accordingly. Also shown is a user starting and discontinuingtracking and sound acquisition for a specific sound sources at will.

According to yet further embodiments, the device may include userinterface circuits adapted to allow a wearer to select for whichidentified feature a direction specific audio signal is generated. Theinterface circuits may include a display selected from the groupconsisting of: (1) a functionally associated touchscreen, and (2)optical head mounted display. The interface circuits may receive userinput from the tracker. The interface circuits may receive user inputfrom the functionally associated touchscreen. The interface circuits mayinclude one or more electric buttons, switches or gauges on the device.FIGS. 1A, 2A and 2B, 2C and 2D show embodiments including interfacecircuits to connect the devices to smartphones which may be used as partof the user interface.

FIG. 1B shows a flowchart including exemplary steps of an acousticsignal acquisition device according to embodiment of the presentinvention. The optical tracking system optically tracks one or moresound sources, also referred to a DSAS targets. A relative directionvalue, parameter or vector is calculated for a target sound source. Thedirectional audio stream generator selects, switches-in, activatesand/or samples array microphones calculated, estimated or otherwisedetermined to be usable for generating a direction specific audiostream/signal (DSAS) in the direction of the target sound source.Optionally, the directional audio stream generator activates an acousticbeamforming processing pipeline with beamforming parameters associatedwith the direction of the target sound source. An audio rendering engineor circuits converts (e.g. D/A) a DSAS into one or more analog signalsto drive one or more speaker(s). Optionally, the audio rendering engineor circuits may adjust amplitude and delay between left and rightspeaker driving signals to provide a listener with perception ofdirection of the target sound source of the DSAS.

FIG. 2A shows a diagram of a device according to embodiments of presentinvention related to eyewear. According to this embodiment, themicrophone array is be a wearable microphone array. A device holding themicrophone array may be incorporated or otherwise functionallyassociated with any wearable device, optionally in the form of eyewear,headphones (FIG. 2C) or other headgear. At least a portion of theoptical tracking system may also be incorporated or otherwisefunctionally associated with the same wearable device as the microphonearray, shown as Cam R and Cam L. Some or all portions of the opticaltracking system and/or associated circuits may be part of the samedevice as the microphone array. According to further embodiments,portions of the tracking and/or signal processing functionality may beperformed by a functionally associated device such as a smartphoneconnected to the device by a wired or wireless communication link.

As shown in FIG. 2B, which is an exemplary functional block diagram ofthe device according to FIG. 2A, the eyewear may include an interface toan external communication device. The external communication device mayprovide for transcription (speech to text) and translation ofdirectionally acquired speech within a DSAS. According to embodiments,the DSAS may be stored on a device's nonvolatile memory (NVM) device oron an online data NVM device. The DSAS may be provided to a speech totext engine, which speech to text engine may be incorporated into thedevice and/or may be part of a functionally associated communicationdevice (e.g. smartphone). The speech to text engine may functionindependently or it may utilize an online speech to text service such asthat provided by Google. According to yet further embodiments, the DSASor text derived therefrom, may be provided to a language translationengine, for example the Google translate engine. Output of the text tospeech engine and/or of the language translation engine may be stored.Output of the text to speech engine and/or of the language translationengine may be displayed on a display of the device. Output of the textto speech engine and/or of the language translation engine may bedisplayed on a display of a functionally associated device, such as asmartphone.

FIG. 2C shows a diagram of a device according to embodiments of presentinvention related to headgear, more specifically headphones. Thisembodiment is similar to the one for eyewear, with the exception of notincluding an eye projection display.

While certain features of the invention have been illustrated anddescribed herein, many modifications, substitutions, changes, andequivalents will now occur to those skilled in the art. It is,therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended tocover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spiritof the invention.

The invention claimed is:
 1. An audio acquisition device comprising: amicrophone array comprising two or more microphones positioned somedistance from one another, wherein each of said microphones is adaptedto convert acoustic signals into electrical signals; a directional audiostream generator (DASG) adapted to convert electric signals output byone or more of said microphones into a first direction specific audiosignal corresponding to acoustic signals having a first direction ofarrival; and an Optical Tracking System (OTS) comprising an opticalsensor and optical information processing circuits to process opticalinformation acquired by said optical sensor, said OTS adapted to: (a)identify at least one optically detectable feature of a sound sourcewithin the field of view of said sensor, (b) estimate a relativedirection of the sound source, and (c) generate at least one directionparameter used by said DASG to generate the first direction specificaudio signal.
 2. The device according to claim 1, wherein said DASGincludes acoustic beamforming circuits.
 3. The device according to claim2, wherein said acoustic beamforming circuits are analog.
 4. The deviceaccording to claim 2, wherein said DASG includes at least one analog todigital converter and said acoustic beamforming circuits are digital. 5.The device according to claim 1, wherein at least some of saidmicrophones are directional and said DASG includes microphone selectioncircuits.
 6. The device according to claim 5, wherein said DASG includesat least one analog to digital converter and digital signal combiningcircuits.
 7. The device according to claim 6, wherein said digitalelectrical signal combining circuits include beamforming functionality.8. The device according to claim 7, wherein said electrical signalcombining circuits include background noise removal processing.
 9. Thedevice according to claim 1, wherein said OTS includes at least oneforward looking camera and said optical processing circuits includefeature identification processing to identify one or more features ofobjects or persons present in-front of the device.
 10. The deviceaccording to claim 9, wherein the one or more features is selected fromthe group consisting of a human torso portion, a human face, a humanlip, a video presentation device, an audio presentation device, and anypotential acoustic signal source.
 11. The device according to claim 10,wherein said OTS further includes processing to estimate a directionparameter indicative of a direction corresponding to the one or moreidentified features.
 12. The device according to claim 1, wherein saidOTS includes an eye tracker for tracking a position of an eye of awearer of said device.
 13. The device according to claim 12, whereinsaid OTS further includes processing to estimate a direction parameterindicative of a direction corresponding to the position of the trackedeye.
 14. The device according to claim 1, further comprising an audiorendering assembly including one or more audio speakers and an audiosignal generator adapted to drive each of said one or more speakers. 15.The device according claim 14, wherein said audio signal generator isadapted to generate one or more audio signals based on the firstdirection specific audio signal.
 16. The device according to claim 15,wherein said audio signal generator is adapted to generate a separateaudio signal for each of two speakers, wherein a relative volume anddelay between the separate signals is based on the first acoustic signaldirection of arrival.
 17. The device according to claim 14, wherein saidaudio signal generator includes background noise suppression circuits.18. The device according to claim 1, wherein said OTS is adapted to: (1)track a change in relative direction between said device and anidentified feature, and (2) update the at least one direction parameterused by said DASG to generate the first stream of audio data.
 19. Thedevice according to claim 18, wherein said OTS is adapted to track twoor more identified features and to generate separate directionparameters for each of the two or more identified features.
 20. Thedevice according to claim 19, further comprising user interface circuitsadapted to allow a user to select for which identified feature adirection specific audio signal is generated.
 21. The device accordingto claim 20, wherein said interface circuits include a display selectedfrom the group consisting of: (1) a functionally associated touchscreen,and (2) optical head mounted display.